


Swallow Up The Flame

by quiet_rebel



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 23:26:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4724195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet_rebel/pseuds/quiet_rebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Seth Gecko was terrified of Kate Fuller...and the one time she was terrified of him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swallow Up The Flame

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Gasoline" by Halsey  
> https://youtu.be/zRHNi3QfFlE
> 
> "Are you deranged like me? Are you strange like me?  
> Lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me?"
> 
> Thanks to Taylah who didn't hate this fic as much as I did. 
> 
> Feedback is fuel.

5.

Kate had been cranky all morning. It started at breakfast. All Seth did was ask her a simple question, “What do you want to eat?”

“Why are you rushing me?” she snapped back.

Alrighty, then. He decided to keep his mouth shut as he returned to scanning the menu inside the diner. 

During their meal, Kate complained that the scrambled eggs were too salty, she didn't like how the cheese tasted, and her water was too cold. Before they left, Seth made sure to leave the exasperated waitress a big tip. 

He suggested they go visit the check cashing place in the next town over. He parked the car across the street, taking note of the one security guard standing outside the door. Easy money. 

Twenty minutes into the stakeout, Kate demanded Seth take her back to the motel.

“But we're not done here,” he said.

“I don't feel good,” she said, rubbing her temples.

Seth grabbed the half-empty bottle of tequila from the backseat and placed it on her lap. “Here. That should fix it.”

“I'm serious, Seth,” she said, pushing the booze back to him. “Take me home.”

“Kate—”

“Take. Me. Home.” Her voice dropped several decibels, causing the hair on his arms to stand. Her face darkened as her narrowed eyes told him, _Don't make me tell you again._

“Fuck, fine.” He looked over at the cash checking place with regret. There'd be no heist today.

Back in the motel room, Kate bolted to the bathroom. Seth shook his head, sitting down on his bed. Women. Didn't matter how old they were, he would never understand them.

A moment later, the toilet flushed, and a pale-faced Kate stumbled out with her arms wrapped around her waist. She fell headfirst into her bed.

“Feeling any better, princess?” he asked.

“I need you to go to the store and pick me up some stuff,” she said.

“Like?”

Facing him, she flipped over to her side and curled herself up into a ball. “Aspirin, orange juice, chocolate, and tampons.”

Seth blinked. “Tampons?”

“You heard me.” She closed her eyes.

With a long sigh, he got to his feet and grabbed his car keys again. If only he was robbing that check cashing place right now instead of on his way to pick up some feminine products. And it wasn't like he was afraid of a little pink box, picked up tampons plenty of times for Vanessa, but this was _Kate._

When he opened the door, Kate's voice stopped him. “Seth?”

He turned around to find her eyes open, and he knew better than to trust the sweet smile on her face. He recalled seeing that same smile from Vanessa once a month as well—usually before she burst into tears for no apparent reason or before she threatened to divorce him because he brought home the wrong kind of bread once. 

“Thank you,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah.” He closed the door behind him and mentally added a new bottle of tequila to his shopping list.

4.

Inside their motel room, Seth passed the burrito over to Kate. 

“Do you want to say grace?” Kate asked, sitting next to him at the table.

“Grace?”

“A prayer,” she said. “Do you want to say a prayer?”

“For what exactly?”

“This food.”

“Oh, don't worry. I'll be thanking your Maker later when I'm sitting on the toilet.” 

He started to take bite of his burrito when Kate grabbed his hands and folded hers on top of them

“Dear Heavenly Father...” she started as she closed her eyes. 

Meanwhile, his eyes widened as he tried to pull his hands free, but Kate pressed down hard with her palms, keeping him in place. 

“We thank you for this food,” she continued. “We ask that it nourish us and give us strength.”

Seth chuckled. 

Kate kept going. “We ask for your protection and we thank you for watching over us. We also ask that you continue to watch over our brothers, Scott and Richie, and—”

“Hey.” Seth tugged his hands free. Hearing Richie's name made his head fuzzy.

Kate's eyes remained close as she finished her prayer. “And let them know we're thinking of them everyday. It's in your Son's name we pray, Amen.” When she opened her eyes, she calmly grabbed her burrito. There was no fuzziness there.

“You don't get to do that for me,” he said. 

“Fine.” She reached for the salsa. “Next time, you say grace then.”

3.

First, it was the clothes.

Their matching wardrobe of black on black.

Then, it was the guns.

The way they effortlessly cleaned their weapons and loaded the bullets into their chambers.

And when things got tight, it was Kate who said she had an idea for a job. “You might not like it,” she said before telling him her plan.

Seth listened. She was right; he hated the idea, but they were desperate, down to their last bit of cash.

So, he didn't object when she put on a slinky black dress, ran a comb through her wavy hair, and dabbed on some pink lipstick. 

She twirled in front of him. “How do I look?”

“Like easy money.” He buttoned up his black suit jacket over his matching vest, then tucked his gun into the back of his waistband.

“Good,” she said, slipping her pistol in her purse.

At the dance club, Seth watched Kate at the bar. She sat alone with a fruity red drink, taking a sip every now and then. Her fingers playing with the cross necklace around her neck. They were barely there ten minutes before the first man approached her. He looked twice her age—American with his blond hair and round belly. 

As Kate flashed him a bright smile and threw her head back with a laugh, the man caressed her bare arm. 

Seth's chest tightened as he struggled to not go over there and break every bone in that asshole's hand.

But Kate turned, causing the man's hand to fall. He gestured to the bartender and opened his wallet.

Seth sat up at his table, waiting for the signal. Kate glanced at the man's open wallet and scratched her left cheek. Score. 

Fifteen minutes later, Kate and the man walked out of the club together. Seth followed them into the parking lot, where the man had Kate pressed up against the hood of a car.

“Just one kiss...” the man was saying as Kate jammed her pistol's barrel into his stomach and Seth pressed his against the back of the man's head.

The man lifted his hands. “What is this?”

“I guess you can call it a stick-up, amigo,” Seth said. “Where's your wallet?”

“Back right pocket.”

Kate's hand snaked around the man's waist and pulled out the leather wallet. She grabbed the wad of cash and stuffed it into her purse, then returned the man's wallet into his pocket.

“You little bitch,” he said.

Seth pressed the barrel harder into his skull. “Watch your mouth.”

“Or what?” The man started to turn his head when Kate rammed her knee into the man's crotch. He groaned, doubling-over. Seth jumped back. Then, Kate raised her weapon and pistol-whipped the guy. The man fell over on the ground, knocked out cold.

All Seth could do was stare at Kate, stunned.

Breathless, but without a hair out of place, she held out her hand for him. “Easy money, right?”

Damn right.

They locked hands and got the hell out of there.

2.

Kate liked to ask Seth questions like, “Why did you let me come with you?” “Why don't you want to look for Richie?” “Why are we still in Mexico?”

Each time Seth answered with silence, a glare, a fist he clenched and unclenched.

Yet Kate never backed down, kept asking him.

Why?

Why?

Why?

And he knew.

He knew one day, she would break him, and he would have no choice but to tell her.

1.

Seth stormed out of the Titty Twister, shoulders sagging and anger seeping through his pores. After pulling off the score of the century, Richie had picked a snake demon over him, his own brother. And what did Seth get in return? Two puncture wounds on the side of his neck. Taste like shit, my ass. 

Outside, Seth stripped out of his dusty blazer, frustrated and annoyed, and tossed it into the Corvette. Lost in his thoughts, he was hardly aware of the footsteps crunching under the sand and gravel. When he looked up, he was surprised to see who else had made it out of the labyrinth.

The preacher's daughter.

Splatted in blood and still wearing her golden cross, Kate looked him straight in the eye. “You want some company?”

He stared at her, wondering if she was serious or not. After everything he had put her and her family through, why would she want to leave with him? He glanced at the open road leading away from the Twister and thought about the empty passenger seat that would be accompanying him.

If Richie wasn't going to join him, who would?

He looked back at Kate, who was still standing there waiting for an answer. She lifted her brows as though to say, “Well?”

Everything inside him screamed, “Take her!” ( _this is who you are, this is what you do_ ) and well, after everything they've been through, why the hell not?

“Yeah,” he said with a nod.

She nodded back like she understood. 

He pointed to the RV. “But not in that.”

She followed his finger. “Hell, no.”

He opened the driver's door to the Corvette and got in behind the wheel. Kate jumped in right behind him with no hesitation. How could she be so sure this was what she wanted when he had no idea where he was going?

As he turned the keys and started the engine, he glanced at his new traveling companion. Kate met his gaze. She still had time to change her mind, but when she didn't say anything, Seth pressed down on the gas pedal and sped away from the Twister, leaving behind Richie, vampires, and the Gecko brothers.

0.

Kate stood in the bathroom, brushing her hair, when she noticed Seth through the mirror above the sink. He stood behind her, leaning against the door frame. How long had he been watching her?

“I'm almost done,” she told his reflection.

She put down her brush and reached for her towel.

“You still wanna know why?” Seth asked.

She looked up at his reflection again. There was something different in his voice. An edge, a sharp curve. It twisted her stomach into knots. She watched him through the mirror as he moved toward her.

“Because I think you already know,” he said. 

In the glass, their gazes connected.

“I want to hear you say it,” she said.

“Is that right?” He touched her arm and spun her around until she was finally looking at him straight on. His face was soft and his palms were open. He leaned forward, close enough for her to smell the soap still on his skin from his shower this morning. “Then, ask me why and you might finally get your answer.”

So, she looked him right in his eyes like that harsh day outside the Twister, and asked, “Why, Seth?”

He placed her hands on her arms again and turned her back around to face the mirror. Their reflections met them. The preacher's daughter and the thief. But as Kate examined themselves more closely, she saw beyond her cross necklace and his tattoo. She saw two lonely, scared, selfish people who only had each other. 

_You're just—_

Seth's mouth lowered to her ear. “—like me.”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to focus on these human moments between Seth and Kate because despite the culebras on this show, being human is just as terrifying.


End file.
